The Complete Short Stories: Volume One

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I'm taking time out from normal reading at the moment to catch up on those Agatha Christies and other classics sitting on my TBR pile. The short story collection from Roald Dahl is just one volume that I have been wanting to read for a while. I've seen many on the TV as part of the 'Tales of the Unexpected' programme but haven't read many. Dahl’s adult stories are not as famous as his children’s books. Taken as a whole, The Collected Stories is as impressive as Saki’s Complete Works if you ask me.

I'm on the fence as whether to call his work feminist because there are portrayals I'm rather uncomfortable with, like in Mrs. Bixby's coat that opens with a bunch of working-class men shivering in a pub together, away from their cunning, sharp-tongued wives. But on the other hand, Dahl has a tendency to write passive women, that have been squashed down their whole lives by their hubby, getting revenge in most grisly fashion possible.

Es verdaderamente entrañable deleitarse siendo niño con las historias infantiles de Roald Dahl. Después te sometes - ¿o te someten? - a algo que llaman crecimiento y vas recordando con lastimosa nostalgia la suerte de Charlie o la gran inteligencia de Matilda, recordando que fueron grandes historias pero que esos zapatos te han quedado pequeños. Pero cuando llegas a adulto, las historias de Dahl están todavía esperándote en un formato más adecuado. Menuda sorpresa, qué increíble colección de cuentos para llevarse a los ojos... Lamb to the Slaughter is still a favourite and The Landlady one of the most disturbing tales I have ever read. There's just SO many good and twisty moments in these stories but they are very dark and disturbing. When you think this is the man who wrote all those children's books! Having said that there's some dark moments in them when you think about it.

El gran cambiazo: dos hombres casados deciden intercambiarse a sus mujeres una noche sin que ellas lo adviertan, invirtiendo mucho tiempo en la preparación minuciosa del acto. His worst story is on the subject of cow-birthing. Occasionally his far-fetched ideas are simply absurd, without being clever enough to propel the reader’s interest. But the vast majority are incredibly satisfying to read. Includes the stories “Poison” and “The Ratcatcher,” soon to be short films from Wes Anderson on Netflix Information on identifying editions is from Richard Walker’s “Roald Dahl – A Guide to Collecting His First Editions”.The second set of stories deal with the art world, of which Dahl was also a part in his time. Eccentric rich people are easy to poke fun at, and he does it very well. “Nunc Dimittis” reveals what Dahl can do with the revenge plot. “The Sound Machine” could have been written by H. G. Wells. When Dahl decides to include science, he is on point. “Mr. Botibol” presents a recurring character at his most self-delusional. It is a charming and heartwarming story. One of the most innocent.